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Having a few weeks off of blogging, my heart has been burning to blog on a subject that has crumbled and continues to eat away at so many marriage. Paul addresses it in the famous “love chapter”:

Love “does not demand its own way.” 1 Corinthians 13:5

This cancerous element has no place in your life. It has no place in your marriage. It will weaken you and your spouse to the point where you will be unable to stand together.

It’s called selfishness.

Yet every time we act out of it…
…every time we think with it…
…we use and abuse our spouse in order to get our own way.

We, by doing it, empower our spouse to say, “Leave the money on the nightstand.”

I understand that it’s an intense metaphor. But I cannot think of anything more graphic, and yet aptly descriptive, of what selfishness does to your spouse. The phrase “Leave the Money on the Nightstand” is known as a reply of a prostitute to a “client”. It is the tired, broken reply of someone who has been so used for selfish gain. It is the rehearsed line spoken to people who have “demanded their own way” with very little care and minimal emotional investment. My fear is that selfish people are positioning their spouses to feel no different from a harlot: simply there for you to get what you want and leave them void.

I’m tired of it. I’m so stinking weary of grown adults playing the childhood game of “mine” with the person they should be serving most. I’m so sick of marriages falling apart because grown men and women don’t know how to think of anyone else but themselves. Every day, people act out a scenario of selfish ambition trying to grab all they can thinking “if I don’t, someone else is going to be better than me.” We take and take until we’ve depleted the resource (marriage) without the thought of pouring in (unless it’s to our benefit). It’s like the zombie apocalypse is about to hit and they’re taking all that they can because they don’t know if they are going to get anything later. To deepen the issue, we seed that mentality in our children by displaying the selfishness in front of them as well as refusing to raise them with the mentality of serving first. Instead, we raise them to “take first” as to make sure that no one else’s child gets ahead of our kids.

Love “does not demand its own way.” 1 Corinthians 13:5

The original language literally means “does not seek the things of itself.” Self-focus, which is the antithesis of love, marked the Corinthian church and, sadly, it marks too many marriages. The way to correct “self-seeking” is, quite simply Christ-seeking. To see Him and discover Him is to discover the totality that is love. And THAT is the remedy for selfishness: Love.

Jesus said,

“’You shall love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your mind and with all your strength.’ The second [commandment] is this: ‘You shall love your neighbor as yourself’” (Mark 12:30-31).

As we find our completeness in Him, it gives us the ability to love and serve those around us. Jesus, in Mark 12, was teaching that concern for others must equal the natural concern we have for ourselves…

…and the word “others” should not just include our spouse but place them first above all human relationships.

Does our spouse see that? Can they tell that they are the priority in our lives? We have to be willing to step off the pedestal we’ve built to be seen and raise up the importance of serving our spouse.

Our spouses should never feel used. Our spouses should never feel void. We have to guard our wives/husbands from be “marital harlots” for us to take what we want and go about our day.

Lay aside your pride. Lay aside what YOU want.

It’s time for you to be a spouse who will raise up the concern to serve HIGHER than the level to receive.